Jack French of the Metropolitan Washington Old-Time Radio Club's newsletter Radio Recall wrote an article on Art Carney's radio career, which can be accessed here.

Also, a participant on the OTR Digest pointed out that David Hinckley of The New York Daily News covered Carney's radio career a little more thoroughly in writing the late actor's obituary.
8:03:13 PM    comment []  trackback []  

Can you tell I'm a little behind with my latest review...?

I thought this was funny, a nice tribute to the classic Milton Caniff strip Terry and the Pirates (which, of course, was also a popular children's serial during Radio's Golden Age):
11:41:02 AM    comment []  trackback []  

Heavens to Gimbels!

Okay, this item has a very tenuous connection to OTR, so indulge me.

Warner Brothers Home Entertainment has just announced that they'll be releasing Gilligan's Island: The Complete First Season to DVD on February 10, 2004 (great, the same day the Abbott & Costello DVD will be out, too). Yes, I can hear your contemptuous hoots and laughter all the way from here, but I ignore your derisive jeers because--in the words of author Andrew J. Edelstein, author of The Pop Sixties, "Gilligan's Island was an LSD trip without LSD." So that makes it A-OK in my book. Besides, TV snob Bart Andrews (who has penned a number of TV-related books, most dealing with his obsession with I Love Lucy) has repeatedly dissed Gilligan's Island in the past and that kind of ticks me off. (He also disses Hogan's Heroes, too. Bart--they're sitcoms...not documentaries.)

Anyway, to tie to this old-time radio, I will point out that the character of Thurston Howell III was played by Jim Backus, who played a similar snooty playboy with the monniker of Hubert Updyke III on radio's The Alan Young Show. Comedy writer (and Gilligan creator) Sherwood Schwartz relates in a wonderful book called The Laugh Crafters: Comedy Writing in Radio and TV's Golden Age (author: Jordan R. Young) that the Howell character was "Hubert Updike's father, really."

As soon as I thought of Thurston Howell, I could not get Jim Backus out of my mind. I had also worked with him on I Married Joan. He had a great voice--I knew he could be that character. I called Jim and said, "How would you like to be in this show?" He said, "Great. Send over the script." I said, "No. If I send the script over, you won't want to do it." His availability had happened so suddenly, I didn't have time to flesh out his part as well as I wanted to. Finally when he got the [pilot] script, he said, "My part is shorter than the wine list on an airplane."
8:54:04 AM    comment []  trackback []